New subject: Video drivers

28 Sep 2003

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From Osher Doctorow Ph.D.
I am glad to notice the heavy volume of replies to my Feigenbaum Constant and 
Weak Force posting, although it is amusing to notice that they mostly concern 
my comment that I'd forgotten what 666 means.  I hadn't been reading the 
replies because I'd been watching the California Recall Election for Governor 
here in California, which may explain why I had trouble recalling what 666 
means (?).  

Actually, I looked up 666 as internet keywords ("The number 666") after seeing 
the replies and apparently in Revelation verse 18 Chapter 13 the Number of the 
Beast 666 is mentioned, which is taken to mean the Devil.  Also there are some 
hysterically funny jokes at geocities.com about 666, including extremely high 
precision 666.0000... and so on.   

Is there anything that one can learn about fractals or chaos from 666 aside 
from Jerry Iuliano's and my and your interesting comments?   Well, this got me 
to thinking after reading the comments and looking up the sites mentioned: what 
exactly was 666 doing in the Gospel or New Testament?   According to one site, 
6 + 6 + 6 = 18, which is the verse in which it appears, and chapter 13 is 
supposed to represent death because of the 13 traitors, etc.  

Well, what if 666 was put into chapter 13 verse 18 by whoever wrote that verse 
knowing that 6 + 6 + 6 = 18?   What would be the purpose of this?  Let's put on 
our Fractal Thinking Caps (FTCs, which also stands for Federal Trade Commission 
incidentally), and think about this.  Whoever wrote that wanted to point out 
that Armageddon was coming.  I suppose that a visitor from Outer Space looking 
at the ensuing history of humanity would tend to agree, although not quite in 
the literal sense.  But what better way for the writer of ch. 13 verse 18 to 
emphasize the importance of his/her verse and chapter than by a mystical 
emotional number which succeeding generations would remember more than the 
usual warnings of future doom?

This moves us into the rather non-mainstream (if not dubious) field of 
historical reconstruction, but wait!  There's more.  What would give a scholar 
whose main literary interests had been the Old Testament an interest in 666?   
According to one of the sites, this was related to the worth of the gifts 
received by King Solomon from Egypt (I think via Queen Sheba).  So it started 
in the Old Testament.  According to this interpretation, it was simply 
appropriated into the New Testament.  This isn't the first such case where Old 
Testament ideas were used in the New Testament.  But what does King Solomon 
have to do with anything in Armaggedon?  Well, Queen Sheba was so to speak his 
downfall (well, in a sense - I suppose that Bill Clinton would have other 
comments on that).  His people had been slaves in Egypt.  Also, King Solomon 
was the smartest King of Israel.  To my recollection, he was into numerology in 
addition and was stated to have "spoken with animals".   This would appeal to 
New Testament writers and scholars probably.  

Ladies and Gentlemen, what we may have here is a number 666 that represents not 
the Devil but Number Theory - the birth of Number Theory which led to fractals 
and chaos and to where we are today (give or take some problems off the 
internet).  

As for the member of Fractint who has the social security number with 666 in 
it, the person is not the Devil but a prospective assistant Moderator of 
Fracint!   I've forgotten his/her name, but I'll look it up as soon as there is 
another pause in the California gubernatorial race.

Osher Doctorow

A Few Comments on the Number 666

mdoctorow＠comcast.net

Martin Krikorian

Alex Dukay

Kevin Sexton

Paul N. Lee

Tim Wegner

Noel Giffin

Martin Krikorian

Kevin Sexton

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participants (7)